Saturday, March 28, 2015

Spiritually Brainwashed (Slimed) (Peter Wagner)

I call it "being slimed" ... I knew it was real, but Peter Wagner
does a great job of giving an illustration. I also believe it is
affecting our worlds on all kinds of levels. I just want us to be
aware.

Peter Wagner writes:

It
was in the spring of 1986 that I first witnessed the influence of the
spirit of religion seeking to resist the new God- directed times and
seasons of the national Lutheran renewal movement. At a meeting of the
national board, an article that raised the possibilities of new
strategies was discussed at length. The prophetic were brought to the
table for consideration. A proposal was made to host a strategic summit
for all Lutheran charismatic leaders in North America to consider new
strategies and seek God’s guidance concerning the coming ELCA merger.

At
that point, the national board’s chairman, whom I shall call Karl (not
his real name), stunned me by recommending that no response at all be
made to either the merger plans or the prophetic words. His rationale
for this non- response was twofold. First, he felt it would confuse the
Lutheran charismatic laypeople, who for 15 years had been told to remain
in their Lutheran congregations and to bloom where they were planted,
as the saying goes. He asserted that it would be better to remain
consistent, despite the lack of fruit seen over the previous 15 years.
Second, he argued that new strategies that might encourage some
Lutherans to leave their congregations could offend traditional
institutional church leaders.

After a heated
discussion, I was amazed to watch as all but two of the board members
backed Karl’s recommendation that no response be made to the prophetic
words. A vote on hosting a leaders’ summit to consider the implications
of the ELCA merger was rejected almost unanimously.

I
walked away from that meeting feeling confused and disillusioned. I
could not understand how a group of seasoned national leaders, who knew
how to move with the Holy Spirit, would fail to gather and give
leadership to their renewal- oriented constituents at such a historic
moment.

An AMAZING REVERSAL

A
few days after that meeting, the Lord told me to host a national
leaders’ summit for Lutheran charismatics in my hometown in upstate New
York. After some serious prayer, I accepted this challenge and began
praying about whom to invite as main speakers. To my great consternation
I felt strongly led by the Spirit to invite most of the leaders from
the national renewal committee, who only weeks before had voted against
meeting to consider the ELCA merger.

I made
the calls, and I was amazed as each leader whom I invited to speak
accepted immediately. Most of them added comments to the effect that
they believed this leaders’ summit was desperately needed at this time.
Of course, I asked them why they had changed their minds. It seemed that
each one, upon leaving the spiritual atmosphere of the national board
meeting, had found his outlook completely changed.

Why,
without talking among themselves, would a dozen decisive leaders change
their minds so completely? I believe the corporate spirit of religion
had been able to create a fear of departing from the strategies of the
past.

Somehow Karl had submitted to the
influence of this spirit, and his leadership of the national board had
spread the spirit’s influence. This corporate spirit of religion had
controlled these strong leaders by stirring in them an irrational
loyalty to their denomination, which in turn had successfully blocked
their ability to act on real data or on tested prophetic direction.

Once
I acted upon these prophetic words and decided to convene the new
summit, it seemed that the power of the spirit of religion had been
broken. The national summit was held in September 1987 with most of the
national board leaders fully involved. That event turned out to be a
milestone. It changed the strategy of the Lutheran charismatic movement
in the United States, setting thousands of Spirit- filled Lutherans free
to follow their Lord’s guidance into more fruitful involvement in the
great harvest. It also helped birth three new submovements and it
strengthened